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Scottish Sleepers

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Journeyman

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trebor79 said:
I wonder if there's a market for a sleeper motorrail? East Anglia to the west country, south coast to northern England & Scotland. Arriving with your car would be very useful for leisure and business travel

What's going to happen to the MK3 sleepers that come off lease? Maybe an opportunity for an open access operation?
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The market for Motorail disappeared a long time ago - people are happy to either drive throughout on better roads and in better cars, or hire cars at their destination. Hiring is much cheaper and easier than it once was.

The Mark 3 sleepers will only be fit for bean cans. I know what a state they're in, and it isn't good.

Have you seen how much subsidy Caledonian Sleeper needs? There's absolutely no way a profitable open access operation would be viable.
 
GrimShady

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Journeyman said:
The market for Motorail disappeared a long time ago - people are happy to either drive throughout on better roads and in better cars, or hire cars at their destination. Hiring is much cheaper and easier than it once was.

The Mark 3 sleepers will only be fit for bean cans. I know what a state they're in, and it isn't good.

Have you seen how much subsidy Caledonian Sleeper needs? There's absolutely no way a profitable open access operation would be viable.
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Agreed, as much as we might wish for Scottish - West Country sleepers/motorail it's never going to happen.

Although I will say, one will never know unless it's tried. You'd have to build up a market over time, nobody is willing to take that kind of risk these days.
 
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vlad

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trebor79 said:
I wonder if there's a market for a sleeper motorrail? East Anglia to the west country, south coast to northern England & Scotland. Arriving with your car would be very useful for leisure and business travel
Click to expand...

Didn't Great Western (or whatever they were called then) add a couple of Motorail waggons to the Night Riviera around the turn of the century? I don't remember it lasting very long.
 
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trebor79

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Ah but that's just it. Who would want to drive into central London to put their car on the train? Putting the car on the train to avoid driving is annulled if you have to endure the wasted time driving into or out of London.
 
GrimShady

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vlad said:
Didn't Great Western (or whatever they were called then) add a couple of Motorail waggons to the Night Riviera around the turn of the century? I don't remember it lasting very long.
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They did indeed, around 1998 of memory serves. FGW spent quite a bit of money converting some GUV wagons with side loading doors. They pulled the service around 2004 I think.

It may not have been successfull but they did try at least for a good few years!

Anyone know what happened to the GUV wagons?
 
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Tim R-T-C

Tim R-T-C

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Perhaps with electric cars being apparently the only option in a few years time, Motorail might return. Especially if they can offer an overnight charge.
 
Far north 37

Far north 37

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Journeyman said:
The Fort William did originally go from King's Cross, I think, but all Sleepers had diverted to Euston by about 1988, as the East Coast Main Line was frequently closed overnight during electrification work. I think the idea was to return some sleepers to the ECML after electrification - hence the blunt-end cabs on the 91s - but it never happened. The sleeper market was starting to decline somewhat by then, and BR had far more Mark 3 sleepers than it eventually needed. It was easier to concentrate all the Anglo-Scottish sleeper traffic on one line.

Traction on the Fort William Sleepers over the WHL was Class 26s before the 37s. The changeover there was some time in the early 80s. On occasion in the early diesel days, the exceptionally dreadful Class 21 and 29 locos made appearances, usually in pairs because they were so unreliable!

Information on Sleepers is quite hard to come by - they don't tend to get noticed or photographed by many people! A lot of the little variations and changes over the years have probably gone completely unobserved. There's certainly not much in the way of books about the history of sleepers, and I think this is a major gap in the market.

My own particular interest comes from two and a half years of working for Caledonian Sleeper. :)
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Im pretty sure class 26s were pretty rare on the whl it was the domain of class 27s till the 37s took over.
 
Monkeyhead

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trebor79 said:
I wonder if there's a market for a sleeper motorrail? East Anglia to the west country, south coast to northern England & Scotland. Arriving with your car would be very useful for leisure and business travel

What's going to happen to the MK3 sleepers that come off lease? Maybe an opportunity for an open access operation?
Click to expand...

I doubt it will ever happen, but I for one would love one from Yorkshire to Cornwall - I love holidaying there, but the drive, with a trailer full of camping gear, is hideous. I've I could drive onto a van next to P7 at Leeds, get into a lounge coach for some dinner, then a sleeper compartment and wake up somewhere near St Austell, I would be a very happy chap!
 
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theblackwatch

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Please remember this thread is in the Railway History & Nostalgia section...before we go too far down the fantasy road on here, we have a dedicated 'Speculative Ideas' thread for such things!
 
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